


Old Wounds

by Theyfightcrime



Category: Fargo (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Oneshot, Post-Canon, wes wrench hangs out with some OCs, with epilogue whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:47:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27285166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theyfightcrime/pseuds/Theyfightcrime
Summary: Brian was out in the front yard when the stranger first arrived, rolling up the drive in a car that was more rust than not. The man had a duffel bag in his left hand and the HELP WANTED sign from the front gate in the other.Despite the foot of foundation on the farmhouse between them, Brian still had to look up at him as he walked up. He was a broad man— unkempt but sturdy, with red curly hair and deep bags underneath his eyes.“Are you here about the job?”Or, post-s3, Wes gets a job as a farmhand.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

Brian was out in the front yard when the stranger first arrived, rolling up the drive in a car that was more rust than not. The man had a duffel bag in his left hand and the HELP WANTED sign from the front gate in the other.

Despite the foot of foundation on the farmhouse between them, Brian still had to look up at him as he walked up. He was a broad man— unkempt but sturdy, with red curly hair and deep bags underneath his eyes.

“Are you here about the job?”

The man squinted, making a hand gesture that Brian didn’t recognize. Something around the ears. It took him a moment to realize that it was sign language.

“Shit, I don’t— er.”

Brian set his book down, slipping inside for a moment and trying to find a pen and paper. The paper was easy— there was an old pad of notes by the phone. The pen was difficult, he found two empty ones before finally finding a sharpie on the kitchen counter with enough ink left to make a mark.

The man nodded at him as he handed it over, letting the duffel bag and old sign fall to the ground. His handwriting was messy, but legible— SIGN SAID YOU WERE LOOKING FOR HELP.

Brian nodded, taking the notebook back. Let me get my dad.

It had been Brian’s idea to put the sign out. For as long as he could remember, it had always been him and his father on the farm. When he’d gone to college, he’d assumed that things would stay as they had always been. After his second year, though, he noticed how slowly his father was working, and how it now took until noon to do the chores he used to do before breakfast.

He didn’t know what his father talked about with the strange man, but they must have come to an agreement, because he joined them for dinner, at the rickety table in the dining room. Things were quiet between the three of them, but not because the man was deaf— that’s just how things were between Brian and his father.

That evening, Brian took a flashlight and showed him up to the guest house. It had been ages since anyone had stayed there, and it was dusty, but the sheets were clean and the water in the bathroom was still running. The man left his duffel bag on the chair in the corner, and when he stood up straight, the top of his hair brushed against the beams in the ceiling.

What’s your name?

WES.

Wes turned out to be quite the jack of all trades. He had a way with animals— he didn’t whisper to them, but he could keep a firm grip on the reins of a horse and stand his ground to get his way with the chickens. Even the most stubborn bull seemed to take a shine to him, and that was quite a feat, seeing as it hadn’t liked Brian since the day he was born.

Wes fixed things, too. For the first few weeks, whenever it was late afternoon and there wasn’t much else to be done, Brian usually found him patching holes in the chicken coop that he hadn’t even noticed were there, or making sure the windows opened right. Brian wasn’t sure what he’d done before coming here— he must have been a farmhand of some kind, he supposed—but he didn’t feel like it was right to ask.

“Does he have papers?” Brian asked, turning to his father as he watched Wes carry a bag of feed over to the barn. He was wearing that same old fringe jacket that made him look like a cowboy. The fabric swung back and forth in the wind, making him hard to miss.

“Doesn’t matter.”

Brian mentally took that as a no, and sighed.

He had to go back to school at the end of that month, and he worried. Wes seemed reliable enough, but he didn’t even know the guy’s last name, or have any idea what his story was. For all they knew, he was just waiting until Brian was gone to kill the old man and ransack the farm. But Brian’s father wouldn’t hear his concerns— to him, Wes was a hard worker, and that was all.

Still, though, sometimes when he watched Wes, he got an odd feeling in his gut. It was something about how he was so singularly focused, and methodical. But then, when he looked at his face, he seemed so sad.

He called home every night the first week he went back, and once a week after that, which was more than he’d ever spoken to his father in his life. But there wasn’t really anything to say. After a few weeks, he only called on occasion— his birthday, thanksgiving, and to let him know he’d be home for Christmas.

There was a terrible snowstorm that winter, the kind that blurred the horizon so there wasn’t land or sky or snow, there was only white white white as far as the eye could see. Brian only barely made it home in time before the roads closed up, and even then, if it hadn’t been for the chains on his truck, he would have ended up in a ditch.

The house had changed since he left. The door didn’t rattle anymore, and there was a pair of dingy cowboy boots that used to be white on the mat. A fire roared in the hearth, and there was a stack of dry wood big enough to last all winter in the shed.

It was more of a home than it had been since he’d been a boy, but still, there was an uneasiness in the pit of his stomach. He hadn’t realized how much repair the place had needed— it took a stranger to do that.

Do you celebrate Christmas?

NOT REALLY.

Wes was cooking. He wasn’t a great chef by any means, but he had the basics down— corn and beans and beef and bread, and he didn’t burn it. Brian waited a moment, hoping that Wes would volunteer more information— maybe mention that his parents were religious, or that they weren’t. To his dismay, Wes handed the notebook back, turning back to the stove.

Dad and I usually spend Christmas Eve with the Williamson’s in town. Do you want to come along?

Wes took the notebook, glancing down at it and making a face. Brian could have sworn it was almost a scowl, but it disappeared after a moment. He set the notebook back down, making a dismissive gesture and shaking his head.

Brian felt guilty about leaving him home all alone, so when they arrived back at home that night, he left a slice of fruitcake for Wes in the icebox.

He ate it.

The night before he drove back to school, he was walking to and from the truck, packing his bags, when he saw Wes sitting by the chicken coop with a rifle in his hands. He wasn’t sure why, but he stopped and watched, transfixed as he saw the man raise it, aim, and fire, clean and steady. Across the field, where it was so dark Brian hadn’t even seen, Wes had caught a wolf through the eye.

Just about everyone Brian knew had been shooting for their whole lives— it was an important skill to have out here— but he’d never seen anyone shoot like that. He watched in awe as Wes lowered the rifle, staring off into the distance to see if there were any other animals he’d missed.

Brian looked away as soon as he realized he was staring, that nagging feeling at the back of his mind again that he’d seen something he shouldn’t have.

He stayed at school for Spring Break— there wasn’t much to do around the farm now that Wes was around, and the travel time cut into his break— so the next time he went home was for summer vacation.

He had a job that summer, a clerking job at the firm in town, nothing special. But it was quite the drive, so he woke early and came home late. This put him and Wes in the kitchen together for breakfast, two silent men stepping around each other, frying eggs and fiddling with the finicky old toaster on the counter. At first Brian felt the need to fill the silence during these exchanges— at least to use the notebook and ask him what he was up to for the day. Wes didn’t seem to enjoy it, though, always responding in short sentences or single words when he could get away with it. Eventually, Brian grew comfortable in the silence, and in using vague hand gestures to communicate what he was trying to say.

It wasn’t proper ASL, or at least he didn’t think it was. He sometimes mirrored what Wes was doing, which seemed correct, but most of his communication boiled down to pointing at things and making faces. But as limited as that was, their silence was comfortable. They sat diagonally from each other at the rickety old table, Brian with his orange juice and Wes with his coffee, watching the sun creep over the speckled hillside.

The sun was usually going down by the time he got home in the evening, or totally gone if his father had asked him to get groceries and supplies. The farmhouse was usually dark— only the porch lamp on, and the pinprick light of Wes’ window up the hill.

One night, though, the farmhouse’s lights were all on. Brian didn’t notice it at first, but subconsciously, it put him on edge as he walked down the drive.

Inside, he found Wes lying on the couch, leg propped up, a terrible gash down the side. Brian had seen injuries like this before— deep ones that sliced through muscle, almost to bone. It had clearly bled like a bitch before he’d gotten inside.

“What the hell happened?”

Brian’s father poked his head in from the kitchen, a bottle of whiskey in one hand. “Wes was gettin’ some hay from the loft and one of the boards fell through,” he explained, pouring a glass. “That old scythe was hanging off the wall— it caught his leg. Lucky it didn’t take it clean off.”

“Christ,” Brian said, stepping over to the couch. “You called Dr. Brown?”

“I tried, but he wouldn’t let me,” he explained, handing Wes the glass. “You should have seen him. Bleedin’ on the ground, but with enough energy to knock me down when I tried to get to the phone.”

Brian stared down at Wes’ wound. Most of the blood had been wiped away— with disinfectant, he hoped— and it had been hastily stitched together with what he suspected was dental floss.

He sighed, fetching the notepad.

That old scythe is rusty. You need to go to the hospital.

Wes was out of it— clearly the whiskey was taking the edge off the pain, but he was also a little bit out of it. Still, though, he had his wits enough to shake his head.

You could die of this.

Wes snatched the notepad from his hands, scrawling something with shaky hands before knocking back the rest of the glass.

IVE HAD WORSE

“It’s no use reasoning with him,” Brian’s father said. “I’ve tried.”

Brian sighed, taking the notebook back and thinking for a moment.

I know a med student, he wrote, she won’t talk.

Wes stared at him, studying his face. He was pale, a thin sheen of sweat sticking his hair to his forehead. Bloody clothing, and desperate eyes.

Fine.

Brian hadn’t spoken to Margaret since high school, but his muscle memory still knew her home phone number. She was hesitant at first, but after a certain amount of begging, she arrived at their door, emergency aid kit in hand.

Wes had nodded off by then, but she nudged him awake, notepad in hand. She had changed since Brian last saw her— there was a confidence now, and a careful methodical touch when she treated his wound.

In the end, she gave him a tetanus shot, sterilized his wound, and gave him a short list of instructions on when to change the dressing and what to watch out for.

“Those stitches he did were pretty clean,” she said, after it was all over. They were sitting on the back porch, adrenaline wearing off, drinking while Wes slept off the painkillers. “He said he’d had worse before.”

“That worried me too,” Brian replied. He’d poured her a glass, but he was drinking straight from the bottle— even if they hadn’t spoken in years, it was almost like high school again. “I don’t know where he came from. Just showed up one day out of the blue.”

“Was he born deaf? Or maybe there was some kind of accident?”

Brian shrugged. “I don’t even know the guy’s last name.”

She let out a long breath, finishing her drink and pulling herself to her feet.

“I’ll be back in two weeks to check on him,” she said, dusting herself off. “Take care of him until then. Keep him in bed, you don’t want him tearing those stitches. And try and help your father around this place.”

“I will,” he said. “I’ll call in tomorrow and stay home…”

“Goodnight, Brian. And thanks for calling me.”

“Drive home safe.”

He stayed in the living room for the next day or so, until he felt well enough to sling himself over Brian’s shoulder and hobble to the guest house. From then he was bedridden, with Brian following Margaret’s instructions as best he could.

Brian hadn’t been inside the guest house since Wes had moved in— there wasn’t much reason to, and Wes was the kind of man who liked his privacy. But for those two weeks, Brian spent a lot of time at Wes’ bedside. He was a remarkably tidy man, with few possessions— that same threadbare duffel bag under the bed, and a few pairs of jeans in the drawers. Brian’s eyes couldn’t help but wander while Wes slept, looking for any traces of who this strange man once was.

He had a few books. Paperback, with broken spines, and stamps saying they used to belong to libraries across the midwest. 50 and 75 cent stickers from when they’d been sold, and marks in the margins from previous owners. There wasn’t any particular rhyme or reason to them— no genre, or author in particular. But he promised himself next time he went into town he’d pick up something out of the dollar bin at the thrift store for him to read while he recovered.

Out of everything, the only clue he found was an old pomade tin on the bathroom shelf. Wes wasn’t the kind of guy to put product in his hair— his sort of just did as it pleased, so it surprised him. He picked it up and found it had been repurposed— something rattled inside. He popped the lid.

There wasn’t much. A pair of cufflinks that looked expensive, and not like they belonged on any shirt Wes owned. A folded photograph of a younger Wes in an old car, a smile on his face. A folded note written in unfamiliar handwriting on motel stationary, reading only GETTING BREAKFAST WILL BRING YOU COFFEE. I USED ALL THE HOT WATER. -N

Brian shut the tin full of mementos he did not understand and returned it to the shelf, ashamed at himself for having looked at all.

Wes was sleeping when he returned to the main room. Still sickly and pale, but the wound was closing up nicely— he only had to replace the bandages once a day now, and when he pulled them off, they came mostly clean.

That weekend, while Wes slept, he drove into town to get groceries and pulled a random assortment of books off of the shelf at the local secondhand store. They weren’t anything special— not much to choose from, even— but he got a little bit of everything. A pulpy crime novel, something fantasy, something historical. Stuff like that.

Wes looked skeptical when he handed them over, looking at them one by one. He seemed uninterested in most of it, but genuinely smiled at one or two of them.

He was most of the way through one of them when Margaret came back to check on him, happy to see his condition had improved. She gave him the clearance to be up and about, and another month before he could return to doing hard labor. He seemed irritated by this, but Brian did his best to assure him it would be alright.

If anything, reprieve from being bedridden just made him more restless. For that month, he frequently woke up early, walking the perimeter of the farm before sunrise, hands in the pockets of his old fringe jacket. He walked unsteadily at first, but his gait gradually smoothed as the weeks went by, until the only evidence of his injury was another fading scar to add to his collection.

Brian didn’t have an opportunity to see Wes’ scars often, but he knew they were there. A star-shaped one just above his hip that Brian suspected was some kind of gunshot wound, a shallow one near where his neck met his shoulder where he might have been grazed with a knife. Souvenirs of a life spent fighting, though Brian didn’t know what he was fighting for.

At the end of the month, Margaret came back, just to make sure everything was alright. That evening Brian took her out to dinner on the nicer side of town, and the next thing he knew, his father was talking about them getting married.

“She did us a favor,” Brian insisted the next morning, dumping sugar into his coffee. The two of them had stayed out late the previous night, sitting in her driveway and chatting well into the early hours of the morning. It was nice to catch up, and he was glad to have an excuse to talk with her again. But they were childhood friends, nothing more.

By the time the summer ended, Wes was back to working as he always had, chasing down chickens and hauling hay. The horses were happy to have him riding again, and when Brian went back to college that fall, he didn’t worry for a moment.

Perhaps he should have.

His father had always been stubborn. Not to the point of recklessness, but still, it was a concern. Brian had long since noticed his body was not as it once had been, but he hadn’t dreamed his mind would go, too.

He first noticed it over Thanksgiving break. He’d ask him the same thing more than once, not enough to cause concern, but enough to be an irritation. By Christmas it was more noticeable— leaving doors open and unlocked, or the stove on. Wes was doing his best to keep him safe— silently checking up and making sure everything was alright— but Brian still felt nervous with Wes up the hill and his father in the big farmhouse, alone. If he left the stove on at night, the place could burn, and maybe Wes would smell the smoke? But if the wind was blowing to the east as it often did, he almost certainly wouldn’t.

It struck him during Spring Break how quickly everything had gone downhill. The farm was fine, but the main house had gradually slid into a state of disrepair. He did his best to clean and organize while he was there for the week, and he talked to Margaret about what he could do, but there was no good long-term solution. He felt a pang in his gut when he drove back to school, but reminded himself that summer was soon, and he’d be there to help his father again soon.

The worry settled into his stomach and gradually grew until an evening in mid-April. It was warm and clear, but there was something eating away at him, and he didn’t know what.

He called home, and no one answered.

He called again. Nothing.

He called Margaret.

She answered on the second ring, surprised to hear his voice. He had trouble explaining himself, but eventually, she agreed to drive over and check.

Twenty minutes later, she called him back from his father’s home phone.

“Brian-- shit, you gotta get over here, something’s happened. You were right. As quickly as you can. There was a break-in, your dad says Wes shot someone, he won’t call the police, now he’s gone—”

“Okay, I’ll— I’ll be there soon. Can you just stay there?”

“Brian—”

“Please. Dad’s not all there, you know that. Just stay until I can get there, it’ll only be a few hours.”

Brain could hear her swallow down the fear in her voice before agreeing, tentatively, to wait. He thanked her, and ran to the car.

The drive home would have been peaceful if it hadn’t been for the thrumming in his chest. He left at ten, and on a normal day, he would have arrived at two— but it was the middle of the night, there was no traffic to speak of, and he spent a significant amount of the drive on toll roads with the pedal on the floor. It was just past one when he stumbled through the front door.

Margaret was sitting on the couch, with his father across the way, sitting in his chair, a bottle of whiskey in his hand.

She stood as soon as Brian entered, letting out a deep breath and running into his arms. Brian almost stumbled when she grabbed him, but after a moment, he steadied, able to feel how much she was shaking.

“Hey, hey—” he said, patting her on the back. “What happened here?”

She stepped back, taking a deep breath. “When I got here, the front door was open— your father was upstairs, I think it was a break in gone wrong.”

“Wes saved me,” his father said, taking a swig from the bottle. “He shot him in the back with some kinda machine gun.”

Brian squeezed the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath.

“Where did Wes go?”

“The truck is gone. I think he… might have run.”

Brian nodded, trying to calm himself. “And the intruder?”

Margaret took his hand, leading him to the hall. Brian had grown up on a farm, and he was accustomed to seeing dead animals, in one way or another. Still, no amount of watching his father slaughtering chickens and the occasional sick cow could have prepared him for this. The man was dead on the stairs— face down, on the incline, back littered with a spatter of bloody holes.

He stepped closer, but Margaret tugged him back, pointing to the ground. There was half-dried blood seeping into the wood, and if he touched it, he’d leave footprints.

“Dad was in his bedroom, and the guy was coming up the stairs?”

Margaret nodded.

“And Wes shot him from behind.”

“The other guy shot first. Missed, though. You can see the bullet hole in the wall, just above the hamper.”

“With what?” They had a fair number of guns on the farm, but they tended to be hunting rifles. Old but sturdy, and really only meant to be fired one shot at a time. Nothing that could possibly produce the carnage they were left with.

“Your father said there was… some kind of machine gun. Not anything he’d ever seen before. Military-style.”

He took a deep breath, turning away from the body and walking back into the living room. He was almost a lawyer. He could think of something.

“Dad, when was this break in?”

“I wasn’t asleep yet. Nine-thirty, maybe. Early.”

“And Margaret, you arrived when?”

“Nine-fifty or so. Fifteen, twenty minutes later.”

“Lethal force is legal here if you intend to prevent a felony,” Brian said, as if he was making a point in class and not trying to fabricate something real. “He shot first, we have a case for that. Easy.”

“But Wes—”

“My roommate wasn’t home tonight,” Brian continued. “I… I could say I left earlier. Got home just in time. Say I had a bad feeling.”

“You really think no one saw you leave?”

Brian wracked his memory. “Shit, no. I drove on toll roads, there are cameras.”

“It’s okay,” Margaret said, looking up at him. “I’ll say I did it.”

“With this thing?” Brian asked, looking down at it, and then back at her tiny frame. “You’d hurt yourself.”

“Then I hurt myself,” she said, swallowing.

“But where would you have gotten this thing in the first place?” Brian asked, shaking his head. “You didn’t even play with BB Guns as a kid.”

“I… maybe your father called me. Told me he was scared, and that he kept a gun by the door.”

“Not a gun like that. And even if he did, Wes must have taken it with him.”

“What if we… I don’t know, shot him again?”

“Adding one big bullet hole won’t make the smaller ones go away,” Brian snapped, shaking his head. “Shit, I--”

“There’s a shotgun in the barn,” Brian’s father said, from the doorway. He’d been so spaced out he hadn’t even noticed him appear. “If she shot him with that, it… well, it’s gruesome. Even if the coroner asks questions, there won’t be much left to look for.”

Brian looked at his father, and then at his feet. Then, he swallowed, and looked down at Margaret. She had a steely expression, and her mouth formed a thin line.

“I’ve never shot someone before.”

“I can show you how.”

They had Margaret fetch the shotgun— her kitten heels leaving perfectly trackable prints in the dirt, one set in, and one set out. The farmhouse was tense and still while Brian showed her how to hold the gun steady. The sound of the shot rang through the night, and cleaved it into two halves— any uncertainty disappeared. They could regret it, but they couldn’t go back.

They told the sheriff that they had a farmhand, but he’d been out of town visiting family for the past two days and wouldn’t be back ‘till the weekend. Brian’s father wasn’t the best liar, but he and Sheriff Douglas had known each other for years, and he wasn’t one to accuse an ageing man who was liable to forget exact details of lying.

Margaret almost got taken in for questioning, but the bruise on her shoulder was enough to convince them she was telling the truth.

By the time the sun rose, the sheriff was gone, the intruder was sent to the mortician, and Brian was in the guest house, looking through Wes’ old things, searching for any clues as to where he might have gone.

He’d clearly run off in a hurry. Most of his clothing was left in the closet, though his fringe jacket was missing, and the duffle bag from under his bed was gone— Brian supposed that’s probably where he’d been keeping the gun.

He checked the bathroom for the old tin, but it wasn’t there— he must have grabbed it on the way out the door.

Desperate to find any information about where he might have gone, he rifled through the bedside table, pulled books off the shelf, went through the pockets of the jeans left in the wardrobe. Everything he found was useless— the books he’d bought for him, old receipts from the gas station, evidence of a half-life spent not leaving tracks behind.

He left, frustrated, the path to the driveway illuminated by the overcast morning. That’s when he saw it: the tin, split open, discarded amongst the paving stones. It must have fallen from Wes’ pocket on the way out.

Carefully, he collected the items, returning them to their place in the tin and snapping it closed, pocketing them and heading toward the farmhouse.

If he was lucky, Wes would be back for these.

The trial came and went that summer, and they got lucky— no one questioned their story too closely. Brian put out another advertisement for a farmhand, even going so far as to publish one in the paper, but no one came. He helped out where he could, but he wasn’t cut out for that kind of work, especially splitting his time between the firm and the farm.

Margaret hung around more often, helping care for Brian’s father when she didn’t have work. They didn’t talk about Wes, but Brian kept the tin in the guest house, like a light left on just in case.

Another two years passed before he came back for it.

Margaret noticed it first— a foreign car in the driveway, and a familiar silhouette up the hill. The same fringe jacket, which was a giveaway at a hundred paces. She fetched a notebook first thing, jogging up the hill and waving to get his attention.

He looked like he might run for a moment, he had that look about him. He was thinner than he had been before— eyes a bit more deeply set, and slightly twitchier. Still, she smiled when she saw him, and he recognized her immediately.

Brian’s missed you, she wrote, handing the notepad over.

I’M LOOKING FOR SOMETHING, Wes replied.

Margaret unlocked the guest house, but they’d cleared it when Brian’s cousins visited a year or so back. And regardless, the tin was gone. It wasn’t until Brian returned from town that he was able to fetch it from storage.

It looked tiny and insignificant in Wes’ calloused hands, but he held it like it was the most precious thing in the world, tucking it in his breast pocket and patting it to confirm it was safe.

THANK YOU.

What is it?

He shrugged. JUST THINGS.

Where are you going?

I HAVE SOME BUSINESS IN MINNESOTA.

Will you be back?

Wes stared at him, an unreadable expression on his face.

YOU WANT THAT?

You’re always welcome here.

Wes swallowed, turning toward the car. He was gone for a week after that— Brian was almost sure it would be for forever. But then, one morning, he was back at the farmhouse door, same as always.

The chickens were happy to have him back.


	2. Epilogue

Brian’s father died on a cool November morning, a few months after Brian and Margaret’s wedding. The farm was quiet and peaceful, and Brian knew what was wrong as soon as he got Wes’ call— the silence on the end of the line told him everything he had to know.

He drove over as soon as he could. He hadn’t been by in a few days— things had been busy at the firm lately, though he knew in his stomach that that was only an excuse for never knowing what to say these days.

He found Wes on the front porch, pacing. As soon as he saw Brian, he took him by the wrist, leading him up to the guest house.

He took a notebook off his bedside table, scrawling something on it and holding it out in front of him:

CAN I BUY THE FARM FROM YOU?

Brian raised his eyebrows, at a loss for words. He hadn’t even considered what would happen to the farm yet— he and Margaret had their own little place near town that they weren’t planning on giving up, and the land itself was probably worth more than the farm these days. He supposed, in the grand scheme of things, he’d probably sell the place eventually.

He thought about all of this as Wes discarded the notepad, pulling the old duffle bag out from under the bed. There was a fine layer of dust on it, and it seemed to be almost disintegrating in his hands. The zipper got stuck as he tried to undo it, but after a moment, he yanked it open, and Brian’s eyes widened as Wes shoved it toward him.

1.8 MILLION, he wrote, PLEASE LET ME STAY.

“Jesus Christ,” Brian said, looking between the duffel bag, the notepad, and Wes’ face. “I’ll have to talk to Margaret, I—”

Wes stared down at his shoes, unable to hear Brian’s voice but able to perfectly see his expression. From there, Brian could suddenly see how much older Wes had gotten— his hair was striped with silver in places, and there were lines around his face that he’d not noticed before. What were the chances he’d be hired somewhere else, what with his age, and what with whatever kind of record he clearly had?

Brian took a deep breath, holding his hand out for the notepad.

It’s not worth that much, he wrote, after a moment.

I DON’T NEED IT.

You might someday. If someone comes after you.

I’LL BE FINE.

Brian blinked, rubbing the back of his neck. Finally, he wrote:

Ok.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to anorchidisnotaflower, winterwinterwinter, kittycombs, and the rest of the Wrenchers discord for betaing.


End file.
